


Limited

by ncfan



Series: Helcaraxë [12]
Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: F/M, Gen, Grief, Helcaraxë, Spouse Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-13
Updated: 2013-12-13
Packaged: 2018-01-04 13:35:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 550
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1081621
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ncfan/pseuds/ncfan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>That familiar sense of failure washes over him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Limited

He can't help but claw at the Ice. The others, they're holding him back, away from the edge, away from her. The chill of Ice and snow and bitter sea water is settling in his bones, freezing his limbs. There's a howl, a sharp, desolate howl; it's coming from somewhere, and he suspects it might be him. Turukáno's limbs feel like lead, and his head is spinning, but he can't help but claw at the Ice. It's completely useless, but he has to do _something_.

He can't do anything.

The Ice had broken beneath their feet, Elenwë's and Itarillë's, the same as it's done to so many others before them. It broken and sent them plunging, and Turukáno had pushed the bedraggled crowd apart and plunged in after them. Itarillë was on the bank now. Turukáno was on the bank now. Where was Elenwë?

Sinking, sinking, still sinking.

There she is. Turukáno can still see her. She's so close; her golden hair is fanning out in the dark water, lit by the dim light of Rána, and Turukáno is sure he could catch her if he could just go under the water again. But then, she's not so close. Then, she's far away. Then, she's out of reach, and Turukáno's arms and legs are so heavy that he knows that he will never reach her, no matter what he does. So he claws the Ice.

Elenwë was not the warm person he had known, not by the end. Her skin was cold and her blood was sluggish. Her eyes were dull and the bones in her hands stuck out when she dug her fingernails into her palms. She was much the same as anyone else, except it should not have been that way, shouldn't have been that way for her. Elenwë was warm and bright, and the Ice shouldn't have been able to take that all away from her as it had done to so many others.

The Ice shouldn't be able to kill her.

Turukáno should be able to save her.

He really should be able to save her, and if there's any thought that makes Turukáno howl and struggled against the ones who restrain him—his siblings, his nearly-blank mind realizes—it's that one, railing against the fate that bids Elenwë to die while he lives.

He should be able to save her. He shouldn't be up here, on the Ice, trapped in his brothers' and sister's arms. He should be in the water, swimming down, to reach her, to save her. There's a voice in his ear. It's Findekáno, telling him that there's nothing he can do.

No, there's never anything he can do, is there? There was nothing Turukáno could do to prevent his grandfather's death, nothing he could do to prevent the Noldor from flooding out of Aman, nothing he could do to prevent the massacre at Alqualondë. Can't stop a thousand senseless things from happening. And there's nothing he can do to stop what's happening now. She is sinking, out of reach, a golden glimmer in dark water, and he is half-frozen, his limbs leaden.

Turukáno sags in his siblings' arms. He shuts his eyes, and wonders if he will ever be able to look at himself again, without seeing her shadow behind him.

**Author's Note:**

> Turukáno—Turgon  
> Itarillë—Idril  
> Findekáno—Fingon
> 
> Rána—the Exilic name for the Moon, signifying 'The Wanderer' (Quenya)


End file.
